


Empty Nest

by unrivaled_tapestry



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Coming Out, Gen, Queer Themes, Single Parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:08:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24844327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unrivaled_tapestry/pseuds/unrivaled_tapestry
Summary: "For fifteen years, Lorenz has dedicated himself entirely to his daughter. She has something to tell him before she leaves for Garreg Mach. He has something he should have said long ago."Written for @JayysNest on Twitter for the Lorenz Week Charity Raffle. Thank you for donating!
Comments: 8
Kudos: 44





	Empty Nest

**Author's Note:**

> Written for @JayysNest on Twitter for the Lorenz Week Charity Raffle, a writing/art raffle and drive with the intent of benefiting Black and Black LGBTQIA+ organizations. They asked for Lorenz as a single dad trying to create a more constructive relationship than he had with his own father, as well as continuing to question aspects of nobility he thought were sacrosanct. Thank you for donating and I really enjoyed writing this.
> 
> I don't have any specific warnings for this little fic per say, but there is a coming out scene. Intended to be ship and route agnostic.

Lorenz and his daughter were very different people.

At fifteen, Miranda looked enough like him. Her eyes, strong nose, delicate lips, and crest of Gloucester all marked her as his progeny. Yet her hair had more curl and wave to it than his own pin-straight cascade ever did, and even from a young age, she’d seemed unable to avoid grass stains and mud—though he was quickly able to dissuade her from picking flowers by the root ball from the botanical gardens. Lorenz also recounted a handful of frustrated childhood paroxysms after needing to sit still in church for hours, followed by banishment to rooms and Lorenz clawing at his skull because _he_ hadn’t been like that.

Still...he’d wanted to be there for her—not shuffle her off on maids and governesses before being sent off to become some noble paragon. First to Fhirdiad and then to Garreg Mach, as Lorenz once was. When they had difficulties, he held harder. He hadn’t survived the war to spend his life afterwards sipping at his whiskey glass and plotting the downfall of others every night like a second-rate opera villain. As much as he could with his responsibilities, he committed every day to wrangling hair, telling bedtime stories, and going for horseback hacks in the glen. If any had something to say about the babe on his knee in council meetings, none dared speak it to his face.

However, some things remained unavoidable.

There was a time when entry to Garreg Mach was the noble standard. An expected pin to the breast of every heir from Enbarr to Gautier.

Now Lorenz had his doubts.

Miranda rode ahead of him at a healthy canter. She’d grown into a skilled rider with a strong seat, full of upright joy and determination as she rode between the copses of trees littering the Gloucester estate.

“You know,” he said, when they came to a stop at the top of a gentle rise overlooking golden grainfields stretching into the distance, “there would be no shame in putting it off for a couple of years. Most of my classmates were a good deal older—”

“ _Dad_ , I can’t just _not go_ ,” she groaned, still smiling. “I’ll make you proud.”

Lorenz beamed, even as the blot of ink on his mood grew a size larger. Was this why noble lords so distanced themselves from their own offspring? So they could send children off to war and politics without grinding their teeth to dust in their sleep?

Did he perhaps not tell her he was proud enough of her already?

But anything further he said would only be read as him trying to keep her with him, and that would not do. This was their last day together before the flurry and anxiety of relocation began, and he’d not waste it trying to get her to change her mind. They no longer fought as often as they had when she was a small child, but he would not risk it today.

A morning ride. Breakfast. Tea in the gardens. An afternoon ride. Followed by a game in the study where he would give her the book he’d purchased as a gift. She wouldn’t be expecting that—he’d already bought her textbooks, of course, but this was a tale he knew she’d love. That was the plan for today, and he wouldn’t let his grief cast a shadow over it.

When he glanced over again, he saw a faraway look in her eyes. He thought he recognized it—she wouldn’t see the line of her home horizon for some time and likely sought to commit as much of it to memory as possible.

“Before I left I wanted to tell you something.” Her horse kept cropping grass, and her attention slipped to the mare’s mane as her hand dropped down to pick at the braids there.

Lorenz inclined his head. “Surely you know you can tell me anything?”

The muscle in her jaw worked.

Lorenz frowned a quarter-measure. _Did_ she know she could tell him anything?

“I’ve just...I’ve been thinking a lot about marriage, you know.” Tears filled her eyes, bright against the sunrise, and Lorenz’s stomach sank because she was crying _why was she crying_ — “When I leave Garreg Mach, I know I’m supposed to...wed. I know the crest comes with responsibility…” 

“Say no more,” Lorenz cut in, as if he hadn’t just been chewing a bleeding spot in his bottom lip. Years of preparation for this conversation readied his tongue. He’d not expected it to come today, but he would rise to meet the challenge. “Please. Sweetest darling, I would never demand that of you. You are the Heir to Gloucester. While that does come with certain responsibilities, you will one day be the countess. Suitors will need to come to you on bended knee, _not_ the other way around.” He took a breath. “Our crests are often a chain, but it is not a chain I will ever hold, and you must not let it be.”

“No, dad. I’m—I’m saying this wrong.” The words spilled from her mouth, her dark gloves going so tight around her horse’s reins that he saw the leather stretching. “I’ve been thinking about...the relationships I want.”

Oh.

“I think about people, you know, and...”

Lorenz hadn’t seen this coming. But he should have.

“And I don’t think I like boys that much.”

But at the trembling _terror_ in her voice...someone may as well have stuck a long pin through his heart.

“I think I like girls.” She took a harsh breath. “I wanted to tell you before I left for Garreg Mach.”

When she finished, she deflated. Her shoulders slumped, and he saw a glitter of tears fall down her cheeks.

Lorenz took a few long breaths. Under him, his horse pawed at the ground, knelt its head to scratch an itch on it’s knee.

“Miranda, I am so very glad you told me.” He wondered how he sounded to her; his voice felt small, likely because of the chorus of ‘you’re a poor father’ suddenly ringing in his head. “I love you dearly. Nothing—not kings or crests or borders or needing to march through Aileill could change that.” He took a breath himself. “I’m not...entirely different. And I realize I have done you a disservice by not being open about that before this moment.”

She looked at him, eyes wide with all kinds of emotions—the relief in her expression should have been a balm to the surprise, but she never should have had a reason to need relief.

He’d been such a fool.

He’d wanted to dedicate himself entirely to her. Entanglements seemed like messy distractions—and with his life, potentially very dangerous for the both of them. It had been better, he decided, to focus on her. For fifteen years he’d not let anyone glimmer in his eyes, had barely even spoken about the concept—wanting her to enjoy her childhood, not burdened with the idea that he was pressuring her to replace her crest, feel the need to have children before she even knew what life was, for all its joys and abject horrors.

In that overcorrection, he’d failed in another way.

“I’ve long known that my aspirations were for...those like myself and those different from me. I realized it at Garreg Mach, actually. I don’t believe my _sainted_ father saw that coming.” It tumbled out of him now. When was the last time he’d talked to someone about this? He couldn’t remember. He just remembered the fear in his chest at the way he’d felt watching Dedue from across the training yard, the sly quirk in Claude’s lips that he found compelling and infuriating, or how the brightness in Ferdinand’s eyes made him want to lean across the table at one of their youthful tea times just to see what could happen. He’d felt a different flush when Marianne’s hand brushed his or when Leonie pinned him during a wrestling match, but that brought its own waves of deep fear and shame.

Rarely acted upon, rarely spoken, yet truly and earnestly a part of him.

“I didn’t know that,” Miranda said, her voice downcast. “You never talk about anyone. And grandfather—”

“ _Oh_.” Lorenz found himself unable to keep the venom out. “Your grandfather can just keep rotting in his mausoleum. You’re alive, my child, so _live_.”

When she looked up again, the tears were still there, but she grinned—wide and happy and like everything he’d let his life orbit around. “I’m so glad I talked to you about this.”

His heart lifting from his earlier shame, Lorenz leaned on his horse, reaching for his daughter’s hand. She took it, for once not brushing him off with ‘ _I’m too old for that_ ’. “Miranda, darling child, I am forever proud of you.”

Her smile broke him, like a cloud coming out from in front of the sun, like a curse being broken.

By the time they rode home, she was laughing.


End file.
